Is Old National Bancorp (ONB) A Good Stock to Buy?

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Reputable billionaire investors such as Nelson Peltz and David Tepper generate exorbitant profits for their wealthy accredited investors (a minimum of $1 million in investable assets would be required to invest in a hedge fund and most successful hedge funds won’t accept your savings unless you commit at least $5 million) by pinpointing winning small-cap stocks. There is little or no publicly-available information at all on some of these small companies, which makes it hard for an individual investor to pin down a winner within the small-cap space. However, hedge funds and other big asset managers can do the due diligence and analysis for you instead, thanks to their highly-skilled research teams and vast resources to conduct an appropriate evaluation process. Looking for potential winners within the small-cap galaxy of stocks? We believe following the smart money is a good starting point.

Old National Bancorp (NYSE:ONB) shares didn’t see a lot of action during the third quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 9 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016, same as at the end of the second quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as Columbia Banking System Inc (NASDAQ:COLB), El Paso Electric Company (NYSE:EE), and Cosan Limited (USA) (NYSE:CZZ) to gather more data points.

Follow Old National Bancorp (NASDAQ:ONB)

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Hedge fund activity in Old National Bancorp (NYSE:ONB)

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 9 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, unchanged from the second quarter of 2016. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish positions in ONB over the last 5 quarters, which peaked at 11 at the end of March. So, let’s review which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.

HedgeFund

Of the funds tracked by Insider Monkey, Basswood Capital, led by Matthew Lindenbaum, holds the biggest position in Old National Bancorp (NYSE:ONB). Basswood Capital has a $9.5 million position in the stock. The second largest stake is held by Private Capital Management, led by Gregg J. Powers, holding a $7.7 million position; the fund has 1.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other professional money managers that are bullish comprise Millennium Management, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management, and Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds, which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-micro-cap stocks.

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